The DCF is excited for member leader Emily Muellenberg's recent appointment to the Commissioner's Teacher Cabinet! Emily is a Social Studies teacher at Highlands Ranch High School and has been a DCF member since 2005. Congratulations Emily!

The Commissioner's Teacher Cabinet is an opportunity for Colorado teachers to share their hands-on classroom knowledge. This advisory group is made up of 20 practicing teachers from around the state representing small, medium, large, rural, suburban and urban school systems.

A survey of nearly 5,000 educators released Oct. 30 by the AFT and the Badass Teachers Association shows that nearly two-thirds of educators usually feel stressed out, twice the level felt by workers in the general population. Most surveyed feel demoralized and disrespected by state and federal officials, especially Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Responding to the water crisis in Puerto Rico, the AFT; Operation Blessing International; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; and the Hispanic Federation launched Operation Agua to crowdsource contributions and provide a reliable source of safe drinking water to families across Puerto Rico.

The 2018 budget proposal "takes a meat cleaver to public education" and ignores promised investments in the types of skills, training and other vital family supports that Trump rode to the White House in 2016, AFT President Randi Weingarten says.

In a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., AFT President Randi Weingarten juxtaposed two approaches for education that would have vastly different consequences for America's students. Either build on the bipartisan consensus of the Every Student Succeeds Act to provide all families with access to great neighborhood public schools, or promote the dangerous, destructive approaches that Donald Trump's education secretary nominee advocates to undermine and privatize public education.